In Ukraine, journalists face violence, abduction

New
York, May 12, 2014--Local and international journalists covering the crisis in Ukraine
have been assaulted and arbitrarily detained in the past week, according to
news reports and a local press freedom organization. At least one was attacked while
covering a contested referendum Sunday on autonomy for the east of the country,
the reports said.

"Both
sides must send a clear signal that attacks on journalists will not be
condoned," said Muzaffar Suleymanov, CPJ's Europe and Central Asia program researcher.
"The authorities in Kiev and separatists in eastern Ukraine must do everything
in their power to ensure journalists can do their jobs freely and securely."

On
Sunday, Pavel Kanygin, a Russian investigative journalist with the Moscow-based
independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was
held overnight in
the eastern city of Artyomovsk by armed pro-Russia separatists who interrogated
him about his articles for the paper, according to news reports and his interview with the online
TV channel Dozhd (TV Rain). Kanygin, who was covering Sunday's poll,
said the assailants beat him, robbed him, and threatened to kill him. The
journalist told Dozhd that the abductors knocked him out by punching him
in the face and that he woke up today in a Donetsk hotel.

On
Sunday, two masked men clad in camouflage broke in to the apartment of local
journalist Aleksandr Yaroshenko in the southern city of Kotovsk, the Institute
of Mass Information, a Kiev-based press freedom group, reported. The assailants
beat Yaroshenko in the face and said, "You don't like Putin," reports said. IMI said Yaroshenko escaped
by jumping out of his apartment window.It is unclear if he sought
treatment for any injuries.His apartment was later burned down by
unknown attackers, reports said. The police are investigating the case.

In
the eastern city of Mariupol, Fyodor Zavaleykov,
a freelance cameraman working for the Kremlin-sponsored TV channel Russia
Today, was shot in the stomach
while covering deadly clashes on Friday
between the Ukrainian army and separatists who barricaded themselves in a
police station they raided earlier that day, according to reports. Margarita
Simonyan, Russia Today's chief editor, told CPJ that Ukrainian authorities had initially
prevented his evacuation by plane. RT reported today that Zavaleykov was
evacuated to Moscow for medical treatment.

Armed
men on Thursday raided the newsroom of embattled regional
newspaper Provintsiya (Province) in the city of Konstantinovka
in Donetsk region, IMI reported. The assailants
forced journalists off the premises and told Mikhail Razputko, the paper's editor-in-chief,
and Galina Razputko, its founder, that they were fired, the report said. On
Saturday, Galina Razputko said on the paper's
website that separatists said the paper would be allowed to publish only if it
changed its editorial stance.

Also
on Thursday, armed separatists in Sloviansk, in eastern Ukraine, detained
journalists with the Ukrainian television channel ICTV after stopping their car
at a checkpoint, the broadcaster reported. The assailants
forced the journalists to exit the car at gunpoint and confiscated their
equipment, including computers and cameras, after inspecting it, news reports
said citing one of the journalists. The assailants released the journalists
after a brief interrogation, ICTV reported.

In
recent months, the climate of press freedom in Ukraine has deteriorated following
violent attacks against local and international reporters, confiscation of their
reporting equipment, and obstruction of Ukrainian TV
channels' transmissions, according to CPJ research and IMI reports. Abduction
by armed separatists remains a risk for both local and foreign journalists: At
least two Ukrainian journalists, Sergei Shapoval and Yuri Lelyavsky, remain
unaccounted
for after being captured by pro-Russia separatists in Sloviansk.